For the second consecutive week, it looks like there’s a shake-up in the original line-up for the Alive at Five concert series in Albany’s Riverfront Park.

Last week, the Outlaws stepped in to replace the Marshall Tucker Band after the wife of Tucker’s singer Doug Gray passed away, forcing the band to cancel the NY leg of their tour to return home.

This week singer-songwriter-violinist Deni Bonet and her band were slated to open the show for Grace Potter and the Nocturnals at 5pm on Thursday, June 25, but Bonet won’t be playing after all.

Here’s how she explains the situation:

“As most of you know, I was booked to appear on the bill next week with Grace Potter & the Nocturnals, for the City of Albany’s Alive at Five concert series – the concert was billed as ‘Girls Night Out’, and the events department were excited about putting such a strong bill together.

Yesterday, my manager received a pretty distraught phone call from a
representative of the City (he was genuinely upset), to say that despite us having had this on the books for months, AND a signed contract, Grace Potter’s management had refused to allow me to be on the bill, and wanted to choose their own opening act. This is less than a week to go before the show! So now I’m writing to you all to say that unfortunately, I won’t be appearing on Thursday in Albany.

According to the City, they pleaded with the Grace Potter people for a week, but her management representative refused to give a reason, other than they wanted to choose an act of their own. The City events dept. have promised me a replacement show as soon as they can find a suitable event, so I hope we’ll have something to tell you before too long. Just thought you’d want to know the kind of bullshit that occurs all too often in this crazy biz of music.”

Fortunately, that’s turned into quite a lucky break for the homegrown Ashley Pond Band, who have been quickly signed up to replace Bonet on the bill. The APB just released their stunningly good new album, “The Warning,” two weeks ago.

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